Magnetic entropy change of ErAl2 magnetocaloric wires fabricated by a powder-in-tube method

TL;DR

This study fabricates ErAl2 magnetocaloric wires using a powder-in-tube method and evaluates their magnetic entropy change, revealing effects of fabrication on magnetic properties and potential influences of sheath materials.

Contribution

It introduces a new fabrication method for ErAl2 wires and analyzes how the powder-in-tube process affects their magnetocaloric properties.

Findings

Magnetic entropy change in PIT wires is similar to bulk ErAl2.

The entropy change magnitude decreases due to reduced ErAl2 volume fraction.

Additional effects around Curie temperature are linked to sheath material properties.

Abstract

We report the fabrication of ErAl2 magnetocaloric wires by a powder-in-tube method (PIT) and the evaluation of magnetic entropy change through magnetization measurements. The magnetic entropy change of ErAl2 PIT wires exhibits similar behavior to the bulk counterpart, while its magnitude is reduced by the decrease in the volume fraction of ErAl2 due to the surrounding non-magnetic sheaths. We find that another effect reduces the magnetic entropy change of the ErAl2 PIT wires around the Curie temperature, and discuss its possible origin in terms of a correlation between magnetic properties of ErAl2 and mechanical properties of sheath material.